A Hat Not Worn
by silversatyr
Summary: Luffy was once given a choice - to take a hat offered. What if he had chosen the other path? What really changes with a choice?


**A HAT NOT WORN**

**Prologue**

He liked this spot, on the bow of the ship. He'd claimed it as his spot on the day they first acquired her; when she was still new and smelled of wax and wood and kairoseki (which smelt of greens and salt and zap, though many didn't know it due to the rarity of the material). Before her scars and dints. Before half her rudder was torn off in a barely-escaped hurricane and the loss of her original sails in a pirate attack one night. He stood there, watching the waves as the wind blew past him, causing his unfastened long-coat to shift uncomfortably on his not-quite-broad-enough-yet shoulders. Behind him his crew worked diligently. Nami shouted orders to Zoro and Usopp, while Sanji sang Robin's praises for something she'd helped him figure out. Chopper's hooves clattered on the deck and Franky's stomping run thundered towards the other end of the ship. The gentle notes of a violin could be heard scattered in the silences, asserting itself as if to say 'Here I am! Don't forget about me!'.

Yes, the deck was a hive of activity, as was the usual when the home port could be seen ahead. White coat whipping lively, the young man turned his back on the island and strode across the deck. He'd been a Marine for all of two years and already held the rank of Vice Admiral, though on this ship he was called 'Captain'. Captain. It was a title that he held in reverence, if only because of a red-haired man and his own childhood dreams of becoming one, but chance and cold, hard reality had conspired to steal him of those dreams. He'd never forget that day when he lost everything and learned that sometimes there were things you could never change. Like death. Death was always a constant. It was one of the reasons why he joined the Marines in the first place. Death and his grandfathers insistence.

* * *

As a child he'd been happy, carefree; maybe even a bit of a delinquent if you believed to what the Mayor had to say. He'd tussled with mountain bandits, escaped the jaws of watery death and made friends with dangerous criminals, so maybe the Mayor had a point, but his real childhood began when he met his brothers - Sabo and Ace. One as dark as the other was fair and both just as crazy, childish and carefree as he. They'd bonded over stolen sake, battled pirates over treasure and bludgeoned their way out of trouble. Stupidly irresponsible, yes, but that's what you got when you were raised by bandits. Life had seemed so easy back then, so simple. If they needed something they 'borrowed' it, stole it or searched for it in the grey wastes outside the city walls. The whole world was their playground and they were the masters of their own fate.

Two days. That was all it took to destroy those illusions; 48 hours to change everything, irrevocably, forever. Those two days seemed to stretch over weeks, for all that at the time they flew by as if hours. First, Sabo's kidnapping by his real parents and the shocking promise given to never see them again. It tore out his heart, to hear that promise come from his brother, but even at that early age he knew the worth of a man was what he did after giving his word, and he knew Sabo well enough to know they'd not meet again in the near future. He'd have given the same promise if the roles were reversed, so it wasn't that he didn't understand Sabo's reasons, but it still hurt. The hours after Sabo's leaving would have been spent in idle distress if their past hadn't caught up with both he and Ace and forced them to servitude for the day. No, neither of them had had time to really _feel_ the loss of their brother.

The night came fast and then the darkest hours of his life; the double-cross, the smoke and flames and the screams that still haunted his dreams. Being dragged back to the little house in the mountains had been something of a relief, if only because it gave him time to make sense of everything, but he'd been too tired and worn from the day of labour and what had happened after to do more than wonder when Ace and Dadan would return before slipping into unconsciousness. The next day brought more pain and, in a way, the realisation of a new dream. For that day brought the horrors of a small boat, lying at the bottom of the bay, hull scuttled, mast shattered; it's sole occupant lost to the tides. He could still remember the feeling of falling as though into an abyss; not a physical fall but one that was within himself, as though his insides had become a dark emptiness that could never be filled. His brother, beloved, book-reading, word-loving, light-haired and -hearted brother; dead. Gone forever because he dared to sail before a mighty ship of dangerous, aristocratic men.

It didn't make sense to him that Sabo could be there one moment and gone, forever gone, the next. Sure, he'd experienced deaths before - the bandits who had been killed in front of him the times Shanks saved his life, the baby bird he'd found fallen from its nest that he and Makino had buried in the graveyard, the various animals he'd hunted with his brothers who tasted so good and hot and meaty and the faint memory of a woman who smelled of spices and honey and love, laying on the floor while he looked on in silence. Yes, he'd seen death, been around it, but he'd never truly experienced it as an emotional severance before that day. And then the axe truly fell.

They'd been waiting for hours, originally as a rotating watch, though towards the end of the day it had become more a silent gathering. He stood next to Mogra in tired silence, what small amount of hope and positive emotions he had slowly draining away. Dogra and a few others had left hours ago to look for any sign of Dadan and Ace, but they'd yet to return. The silence smothered everything, making it hard to hear, think or feel. All he could remember of that long wait was the urge to be ill and the firm hand on his back - Mogra lending some support, though he usually disdained the need of it in others. The sky was starting to bleed red and orange when the call came, and with it sudden, shocking movement. Noise rose up and feet moved. Shouts and calls and cries and happy voices with stamping, stomping, running feet. A terrible shout ahead and then more silence. He slowly made his way forward, dreading the sight but knowing that he needed to see.

Ace - annoying, childish, handsome, funny, cruel, protective, gentle, firm, fiery Ace; dead. His skin, blackened and crisp. The smell of evenings spent spinning tales and meat, juicy meat and laughing companionship and well-done morsels of meat, rising from his corpse. His body, wrapped like a mummy - and didn't that look funny? Ace hated horror stories, especially those of mummies and zombies and... He'd gone a bit mad then, laughing and crying and screaming and throwing himself to the ground or at Ace's body or anywhere but at the truth before him. Strong hands had grabbed him and forced him away and a part of him was thankful for it, while a part of him hated them. He wanted to stay, to be with Ace. He wanted to leave, to get away from the reality of that burned and blackened body. He wanted to hide away from the world and never see it or anyone ever again.

It was a while before he noticed anything beyond his bedroll. He'd curled up into a ball and slept the days away, not wanting to leave. Hiding in dreams was his only escape and it all came crashing down when a loud, unwelcome voice boomed for him to get up and get his things together. In a daze he made his way around the room, collecting his few possessions. He had no idea why he was doing so, but that voice demanded obeying. Or else. Or else he'd be sent flying from a 'loving' punch. Or else he'd be made to work and fight and talk; and talking was the last thing he wanted to do at that moment. So he got up and gathered his things and followed the man without question when he was told to. He was hugged by a red-eyed and wild-haired Makino, patted on the shoulder by a solemn Mayor and waved to by a quiet gathering of villagers as he was prodded onto a ship and sailed away from the town he'd always known of as home.

It would be years before he'd return and by then his grandfather had whipped him into shape and deemed him as worthy enough to start his first test. By then he had been taught all manner of survival skills, met all manner of people and even made pseudo-friends with some. By then he'd learned to put the past behind him, learned that sometimes things happened that couldn't be changed and that all it took for evil to grow, to take away people's loved ones, was a person not willing to do the right thing. By then he had sworn never to lose anyone he cared about again because of his inability to take care of them, to never give up on his dream and to never give in to doing wrong. By then he had become a marine, if not officially, then at least in character.

And that was where his story truly began...


End file.
